Even in the summer heat, 99-year-old S.Prestley Blake drives his green off-road cart to check on his construction project several times a day.

Blake, co-founder of the Friendly's Ice Cream empire, is spending an estimated $6 million to build a copy of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello just down the street from his home in Somers.

Patterned after the U.S. president's mansion, the 10,000-square-foot house is slightly smaller than the 11,000-square-foot original, but the front of the building looks remarkably similar in just about every other respect.

"You know what a swan song is? It's the last song that a swan sings before it dies," he said. "I might be dead next year. And I've got a bonus for the builder: If he finishes it before I die, he gets a big bonus.

"You ought to see how far [along] it is. It's only one year old!" Blake said. With that, he drove his utility vehicle down what he calls "The Monticello Highway," a dirt horse trail surrounded by oak, maple and cherry trees on his 80-acre property. The path took him behind two neighboring homes to the back door of the construction site.

Heavy machinery surrounded the house, and the hum of compressors filled the air as workers finished for the day. The new Monticello's exterior is made primarily of handmade red bricks,but also of concrete composite and white limestone.

"The outside is exactly the way he built it," Blake said of Jefferson as he strode toward the back door in his long white socks and old black loafers. He pointed at a downspout. "See the copper, brown copper? … Just the way he built it."

@IOU It is a story when it is published in the Courant. It is not your paper and his personal doings are not your business. Boy, lots of hateful liberals on this one. Envy is the root of all evil and dismay. But then again, most of you should know that by now.

Blake, who will be 100 in November, rested downstairs while his wife, Helen, showed visitors the upstairs.

The Blakes hope the project is complete in September and ready to sell to a private buyer who can afford to maintain it. Potential customers will be interviewed by Blake.

Helen Blake, 82, is planning an early centennial birthday party for her husband in October before they leave for the winter in their Florida home. She intends the 300 guests to enjoy the cocktail party in the new house.

The workers are racing to finish by deadline. If they do, they will have built the mansion in 15 months from scratch to completion. Jefferson, the architect of his own house, spent decades on it, redesigning and refurnishing throughout the late 1700s.

Blake said he had long appreciated the architecture of the original and came to admire Jefferson as well. He decided he wanted to build a copy of Monticello when he purchased his neighbor's property in 2013.

"It's the most famous private residence in the U.S.A.," Blake said. "The White House is more famous, but that's government owned."

In May 2013, the Blakes flew with the general contractor, Raymond Laplante, and his son, Bill, to visit historic Monticello inCharlottesville, Va. They brought back pictures and a book on the original architecture.

One of the biggest challenges was to create a modernized floor plan without disturbing the appearance of the facade. From the outside, the house appears to have only one floor, but it contains two.

"It's basically a design-build project as we go along," said Raymond Laplante, whom Blake had hired previously to build his stepdaughter's house nearby.

The new Monticello features modern elements that include a three-car garage and an elevator, and some of thewood comes from the walnut and cherry trees in Blake's backyard. The interior designer, Jennifer Champigny of East Longmeadow, Mass., put the kitchen on the first floor; the original's was in the basement.

Champigny said the Blakes were involved in every aspect of the design, from the hardware to the lighting.

"He's very adamant about the outside being like the original," Champigny said. "But, realistically, nobody would move into the original Monticello the way it is. So the modernized part of it, he's definitely on board with that."

Ken Schroeder, a lead carpenter on the project, said he has been working six days a week on it since February.

"It's not much different from a regular house," Schroeder said. "It's just a lot more of it. And the biggest thing is planning and making sure that you get it right the first time because no one wants to go back and have to tear it out. The hardest part is making it look proportional and aesthetically pleasing. Everything's got to be in line. Things can't be crooked 'cause that will catch your eye."

How It Came To Be

The new Monticello has drawn mixed reviews. On Hall Hill Road, a country road with tracts of woods, expansive green lawns and widely spaced homes, at least some neighbors hope it will increase property values and some say they appreciate it for its historic appearance.

"It's an unbelievable building. And I know it's a labor of love from Mr. Blake. It really is. I think it's a unique thing for Somers," said Somers First Selectman Lisa Pellegrini.

Leah Corriveau of Somers welcomes the new Monticello.

"Even though it's a replica, it brings part of our country's history to Somers and it brings something special," Corriveau said. "And also it teaches my children about someone giving something back. It's a funny thing to give back, but it's still something to give back."

Corriveau said she wishes that Blake had built it as a community center for the town.

Michael Cirillo, who lives down the road, said the building is "out of place."

"I think it's a little too extravagant for the area," Cirillo said. "The old house had some ambience with it. It was set back. It was beautiful."

The "old house" belonged to Blake's longtimefriend and neighbor, Gerald D'Amour, Big Y's co-founder, who died a few years ago. Blake had toured Monticello a few years earlier but didn't think of reproducing it until the D'Amour property came up for sale. He was able to get it for half the asking price.

The D'Amours used to have a house and a family chapel. The children had been looking for a buyer for a few years after Gerald and Jeanne D'Amour died, Blake said, but it was difficult to sell with the church on the land.

"Everything came just right," Blake said. "They were getting desperate. They asked for $2 million, and nobody wanted to pay it because of the church. So I knew that. So I said I'll give you $900,000 and I'm going to tear everything down. So that's how it started out."

Blake got the needed permissions to tear down the old buildings and fill the pond on the nine-acre parcel on the Connecticut-Massachusetts border. He estimates that he will spend more than $6 million to finish the Monticello reproduction.

Blake's lifelong business career meant he had the time and wealth to invest in the Monticello project.

Blake made his fortune after he and his brother, Curtis, with $547 borrowed from their parents, opened Friendly Ice Cream in their hometown of Springfield in 1935, during the Great Depression. Over time, they expanded the mom and pop store into a national restaurant chain of more than 600 outlets on the East Coast before selling the company to Hershey Foods Corp. in 1979.

After he was retired for about 20 years, Prestley Blake started a long fight with the Friendly’s board and its chairman, Donald Smith, accusing Smith of misusing the company's money. Blake began to collect Friendly's shares in 2000 and became the largest shareholder within a year. In 2003, he sued the management team. Blake dropped the case when a division of Sun Capital Partners Inc. bought the chain and made it private. Blake's wife said he spent $11 million on the suit but got it all back, and then some.

He doesn't expect to make money off the Monticello sale.

"I'm not building it to sell for a profit." Blake said. "I'm selling it for the good of the community to have a historical piece to look at. Everybody [who] goes by looks at it. Everybody."

@IOU It is a story when it is published in the Courant. It is not your paper and his personal doings are not your business. Boy, lots of hateful liberals on this one. Envy is the root of all evil and dismay. But then again, most of you should know that by now.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of the story incorrectly listed the company board Prestley Blake brought complaints against. The board he accused of misuing company money was Friendly's. Also, the story incorrectly reported that law suit over those complaints was settled. The case was dropped.

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